A nice snapshot of contemporary values: I saw that Coca-Cola is promoting the movie [The Golden Compass], and I wrote to them to express my feelings about it -- including mentioning that the villains are called "The Magisterium" in the movie. Here is the response I got: "We appreciate the opportunity to respond to your concerns." The Golden Compass movie is a story about friendship, love, loyalty, tolerance, courage and responsibility. This movie also provides an opportunity for Coca-Cola to help raise awareness about climate change and the perilous state of the polar bear.""We do not believe that this...

Dear Lucky Winner, We are pleased to inform you of the result of the just concluded annual final draws of Coca-Cola Worldwide Promo held in United Kingdom, South Africa and Canada. on Saturday 3rd Nov 2007 at 10:45am . The online Coca-Cola Worldwide Promo draws was conducted by a random selection of email addresses from an exclusive list of 29,031,000 E-mail addresses of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer search from the internet in all the countries where our products exists which is our social responsibility to our valued customers. However, no tickets were sold...

(TEL AVIV) -- Coca-Cola Co. said it opened a research center in Beijing that will partner with a Chinese research center to develop drinks based on Chinese herbal ingredients and formulas. The Coca-Cola Research Center for Chinese Medicine opened within the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences. The academy is the national center for research, health care and education in traditional Chinese medicine, the Atlanta soft-drink giant said. Coke, the world's largest maker of non-alcoholic beverages, has a long-term collaboration agreement with the academy, which is overseen by the country's Ministry of Health......

Pepsi, Coke rivalry becomes physical Fri Oct 12, 9:46 PM ET The long-standing rivalry between Coke and Pepsi took a physical turn Friday when a Pepsi deliveryman allegedly punched his Coke counterpart in the face at a western Pennsylvania Wal-Mart, state police said. The two deliverymen were "apparently bickering back and forth" while unloading their wares at the Indiana County store, police said. When the Coke deliveryman left the store, his counterpart allegedly punched him in the face three times, breaking his nose and giving him a black eye, police said. No charges have been filed, but police characterized the...

HAVANA (AP) — The golden arches are nowhere to be found. There's not a single Starbucks or Wal-Mart, and no way to buy a Budweiser, a Corvette or a Dell. But even in Cuba, you can get a Coke. Despite the U.S. Trading With the Enemy Act, which governs Washington's 45-year-old embargo, sales on Fidel Castro's island are lining the pockets of corporate America. Nikes, Colgate and Marlboros, Gillette Series shaving cream and Jordache jeans — all are easy to find. Cubans who wear contact lenses can buy Bausch & Lomb. Parents can surprise the kids with a Mickey Mouse...

The next time you drink a Pepsi, take a moment to think about the role the beverage played in the early days of the civil-rights struggle. Mere sugar water it may be. But in the early 1940s, Pepsi-Cola was one of the only big American companies willing to give blacks a chance to prove themselves as white-collar talent. The story of the cola wars is taught often as a business-school case study. However, the battle had a fascinating sociological dimension as well. When Pepsi began challenging Coca-Cola in the 1930s, the upstart was decidedly down-market, selling its product in cheap...

Coca Cola Logo Takes on New Meaning in the Eyes of Islamists December 28, 2006 For anyone who thought the reason for Coca Cola's popularity in the West due to it's secret ingredient (rumoured to have been cocaine at one time) think again. According to this Chechen Jihad website the Coca Cola logo is actually a backwards rendition of the Arabic for No Muhammed and No Mecca ! http://www.camagat.com/engilisce/albeti_eng/CocaCola.gif Source: http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2640

GERMANS and Austrians are uniting against a kindly old man who brings joy to children all over the world. Their call: Ban Santa.Campaigners in both countries claim Father Christmas is an invention of the Coca-Cola company in the United States and should be ditched. In Austria, "Pro Christkind" - it means "For Christ Child" - want images of the baby Jesus and St Nicholas to replace the white-haired, portly old man dressed in red and white, who they see as symbolic of the commercialisation of Christmas. Their campaign, with a logo featuring a picture of Santa with a red line...

<p>Sirte, 11 Sept. (AKI) - Coca Cola is an African beverage, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was reported as saying on Monday.</p>
<p>Speaking during celebrations for the 7th anniversary of the African Union in Sirte, his hometown, Gaddafi claimed that the US-drink was African as "its essences come from our plants and so multinationals must pay compensation to us."</p>

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai presided over the official opening of a new Coca-Cola plant in Kabul on Sunday, more than 10 years after the previous Coke facility in the capital was destroyed in the country's deadly civil war. Karzai praised the plant's developer, Habibullah Gulzar, for investing $25 million to build the facility, which has provided 350 jobs and can annually produce 15 million 24-bottle cases of the soft drink. "This is another step forward for economic growth, self-sufficiency and better living standards for Afghanistan," Karzai said during an inauguration speech at the plant in Kabul's eastern...

Pepsi Alerted Coca-Cola to Stolen-Coke-Secrets Offer•Three Arrested for Allegedly Stealing, Plotting to Sell Coca-Cola Recipes•Coke: Coca-Cola (KO) and Pepsi (PEP) are usually bitter enemies, but when PepsiCo Inc. got a letter offering Coke trade secrets, it went straight to its corporate rival. Six weeks later, three people were scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday to face charges of stealing confidential information, including a sample of a new drink, from The Coca-Cola Co., and trying to sell it to PepsiCo......

CLAYTON, MO. - A St. Louis weight-loss instructor is suing the Coca-Cola Co. over its product loyalty campaign, claiming the program might encourage children to drink so much of the soft drink that they could die. The campaign, called "My Coke Rewards" gives customers points for buying Coca-Cola products. Customers trade in points for prizes that range from baseball gloves to free vacations. Julia Havey says it's no sweet deal. The program expires in January, and to accumulate enough points by that time for high-end prizes, customers would need to drink hundreds of Cokes a day, she said. Coca-Cola spokesman...

Doctors will this week declare war on America's soft drinks industry by calling for a 'fat tax' to combat the nation's obesity epidemic. Delegates at the powerful American Medical Association's annual conference will demand a levy on the sweeteners put in sugary drinks to pay for a massive public health education campaign. They will also call for the amount of salt added to burgers and processed foods to be halved. The moves come as U.S. doctors - like their British counterparts - are becoming increasingly alarmed at the growing number of deaths linked to obesity. The resolution will put doctors...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Coca-Cola, fearing Wal-Mart would launch its own sports drink to rival the beverage giant's Powerade if it didn't agree to the retailer's new distribution terms, caved under the pressure and altered its own century-old supply system, a published report said Thursday. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, asked Coke last year to switch to the straight-to-warehouse delivery method, and Coke's largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises (Research) (CCE), began doing so across much of the U.S. in April, the Wall Street Journal said. But according to June 1 court filing by Coke, the company stated that it faced a...

The world today is full of evils that compete for our outraged attention. In Sudan, genocide is underway. Closer to home, in Castro's Cuba, political prisoners languish in fetid jails. But at Macalester College, some students are crusading against the friendly folks at Coca-Cola through an initiative called the "Campaign to Stop Killer Coke," the latest cause du jour on "progressive" campuses. Last week, the students announced that Macalester's Social Responsibility Committee had voted unanimously to ban Coke from vending machines and fountain-drink locations on campus. Macalester's president must sign off on the ban for it to take effect. Mac's...

...The university, which has 50,000 students on three campuses, on Thursday became the 10th college to stop selling Coca-Cola products... ...Labor activists have said that Coca-Cola, through its Latin American bottlers, has been complicit in the deaths of eight union leaders and in continued harassment of unionized employees. In India, a different group of activists have accused Coke of polluting the soil and groundwater near several bottling plants, of severely reducing groundwater levels in drought-prone areas and of failing to install adequate filtration systems that would remove pesticides from the water used to make its products. The activists, led by...

The University of Michigan suspended sales of Coca-Cola products on its three campuses over allegations that the company permits human rights and environmental abuses abroad. The suspension, which begins Jan. 1, will affect vending machines, residence halls, cafeterias and campus restaurants. Coke's contracts with the university are worth about $1.4 million. The university and the company said they will continue to negotiate. "The University of Michigan is an important school, and I respect the way they worked with us on this issue," said Kari Bjorhus, a spokeswoman for The Coca-Cola Co., told the Detroit News. "We are continuing to try...

Coke to phase out Vanilla Coke in U.S NEW YORK (Reuters) - Coca-Cola Co., the world's largest soft drink maker, said on Friday it would phase out its Vanilla Coke, Vanilla Diet Coke and Diet Coke With Lemon beverages in the United States by end of this year. Coca-Cola shares were down 1.1 percent in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The announcement came a day after Coca-Cola said it would phase out Vanilla Coke and Vanilla Diet Coke in the United Kingdom early next year. The company said sales have declined. Coca-Cola added that it plans to...